I THINK MINING

Good blogs about mining are rare.  Along Fools Gold Road is a blog about mining that I have just come across.  Here is an extract from one of the postings that helps us understand and appreciate the fascination we all have for gold:

The diverse and individual appearances of gold nuggets are stunning, similar to how no two snowflakes look alike. Gold’s physical properties of lustre, density, and color, etc are incredible in themselves, but there is something innate to me that understands gold is valuable. Unlike fickle humans and our modern, crazy world, gold remains the same forever (it does not change chemically or biologically) and of itself, is a finite resource located all around us. At the Little Squaw gold mine, I was given the privilege of selecting the best nuggets and specimens for prospective jewelers and collectors – it was amazing. I was honest and forthright in all my interactions with the gold, but I did fight the shadowy specter of thievery which descends upon the best of gold mining camps. (Once, this involved a drunken group of investors and geologists who hid the gold and forgot where they put it). I never did buy an ounce from the company itself, and henceforth my goal is to save one ounce of gold from every placer mine I visit. Now, the investor Oracle, Warren Buffet, says that with all the gold in the world (which fits into a cube 67 feet in every direction) you could by ALL the farmland in the USA, 10 Exxon Mobiles, and still have $1 trillion to play around with. And with that he asks rhetorically – “which has more value?” Well, I disagree with the humorous argument, and I believe that gold is an amazing treasure, it’s value will always remain stable, and finding and mining it will always be a slow, difficult, and risky endeavor.

Here is a link to the blog—it is worth your time to go to this blog and read. 

  The author, Dylan McFarlan, is young, but has a cynical eye and a talent for description, at once full of detail, fascination, and alternative perspective.  Consider the following:

There are lots of ways to “salt” a claim, and despite my limited years in this business, I have seen some unfortunate practices. Even I was once suspected of stealing gold from a placer mine (however, it was a drunken head geologist at camp who had hid the gold in a secret location and then forgot where it was hidden). Some tricks by the old time scammers in Alaska were to spit into their gold pan while “sampling” virgin material in front of their potential investor. The gold traveled with the loogie into the pan and suddenly, the wide-eyed outsider was GONNA BE RICH! Another scam involved slightly more preparation. The old sourdough rolls a few cigarettes in the morning, sprinkling fine gold into their tobacco, and as he “samples” the gravel around the mining claim, the very rich cigarette ashes just happen to fall within the confines of the gold pan. Gold fever strikes again.

This is good writing–the essence of a good blog.  It is personal–again the essence of a good blog.  I hope he keeps writing and we can keep reading. 

Dylan has an opinion about the Pebble Mine.  Now nobody agrees anything about this project, so his is another voice.  here is one of his pieces;

Two interesting links about the proposed Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum mine today. One is a commentary in the Bristol Bay Times republished elsewhere that unfairly characterizes the scientific professionals working on the deposits as “destructive”. Here is my response:

Has the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on research around the Pebble mineral deposit negatively impacted the culture or society of Bristol Bay? You said that the proposal itself is itself “destructive” – can you explain? It is a proposal – no infrastructure or mine even within ten years. There is a very long timeline to permit this mine (Red Dog took twenty years!)

I am happy with the leadership experience of Shivley – the Red Dog mine in Northwest has been a success in most professional opinions – do the authors disagree? I believe your BBNC has been acting very strategically also, and will not allow Pebble to access the lands until they are dealt a very beneficial impact agreement. 

I am also glad that the EPA will conduct this study of the watershed, and I believe the more useful, pertinent data collected on the hydrology, geochemical characterization, and spawning regimes the better. I want to see the best large scale gold-copper mine with the world’s best, most sustainable, salmon fisheries in the world, here in Alaska.

I suppose none of this commentary utilized the metals copper, gold, molybdenum, silver, rhenium or palladium??? Perhaps all the modern fishing can trace there metal use from successful mines in far corners of the globe where conflict, poverty, and environmental destruction has not occurred? And I suppose finally that all the fishermen never pollute or dump by-catch illegally and unethically?